The Toughest Woman in the Dorm

After paying the bill and leaving the “old spot,” we went straight back to the girls’ dorm and headed to the washroom to empty the Abbacchio-Tea from our full bellies.

The women’s washroom was naturally different from the men’s. There were no urinals, just rows of stalls on either side. I, of course, was standing inside one, and I could hear the whooshing sounds of Exusiai, Yukino, and Saber from the neighboring stalls.

This might sound a little…

How many times have I said that today?? Is my brain hardwired for perversion now?

The lights in our school’s dorms turn off at 11 PM sharp, but the doors are locked at 10 PM. For safety, no one is allowed in or out after that. System-Hime required us to stream at 12 AM, so we left the dorm before the doors locked at 10, becoming phantoms in the night.

The designated livestream location was the abandoned No. 1 female dormitory building in the corner of the school. We had heard the rumors about this building long ago. It was built when the campus was first established and was now quite old, a relic of a bygone era with many of its facilities in disrepair. But to save money, the school never bothered to fix it. That is, until the year we enrolled, when a senior student fell to her death from the dormitory’s rooftop.

The rooftop had guardrails as required by national regulations, but due to years of neglect, the rails had rusted through and broken, and the student fell. At the time, some said she had slipped and fallen by accident, while others whispered it was suicide. The debate raged, but one fact couldn’t be denied: the guardrails were indeed broken, and the school faced a huge public outcry. Only then was the school forced to abandon the building. Probably due to funding issues, plans for renovation or reconstruction had not yet been prepared, and the old building stood like a forgotten tomb in a quiet, rarely visited shadow of the school, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

Like many other abandoned buildings, this one had its share of ghost stories, but they were all so cliché that anyone could guess them—the ghost of the fallen girl still wandering the halls, weeping in the dead of night, and so on. In an age where horror movies and paranormal novels are everywhere, not even the most timid girl would be scared by such stories. But System-Hime wanted us to stream here. Did that mean there was really something to it? A real-life horror event?

We squatted next to the abandoned dormitory, waiting for midnight to arrive, and discussed this question.

Saber, true to her title as the toughest woman in the dorm, didn’t flinch. Hearing that there might really be a ghost, her verdant eyes sharpened with a predatory gleam. “The ghost of a female student… I sincerely hope she really exists!”

Yukino, who had gradually calmed down over the past few hours, curled her lips into a small, wry smile. “Aren’t you afraid of ghosts? It’s a female ghost, you know.”

Saber’s confident expression was like that of a knight-king who had never known defeat. “She’s a woman first, and a ghost second! The law only protects people, not female ghosts. There are some things I’ve always wanted to try that are hindered by the law. Now I’ve finally found my chance!”

Yukino’s smile visibly transformed into one of disbelief.

You won’t even let a female ghost go?!

—That’s what her dark, expressive eyes seemed to be saying.

I had to admit, there was a reason Saber had occupied the top spot on our dorm’s animal leaderboard for so long. She had her own extraordinary qualities, a level of degeneracy that transcended the mortal coil.

Run, female ghost, run!

Exusiai, who was squatting next to me out of boredom, asked, “Kiriko, didn’t we promote our stream on that girl’s Tw*tter earlier? Has the number of followers changed?”

“Oh right, I forgot about that. Let me check.”

I took out my phone, opened Tw*tch, and found our stream channel. Yukino and Saber also leaned in. The four of us huddled around the screen, and I could smell the sweet, intoxicating fragrance coming from the three of them—a mix of their individual shampoos and something uniquely… them.

The original number of followers was 1. Now it was 356, and the number was still ticking upwards.

“356 right off the bat, that’s pretty good.” Yukino raised her slender, ink-stroke eyebrows slightly, looking satisfied. “I had a buddy who streamed for a year. By the time he gave up last month, his follower count hadn’t even reached 300.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, my forehead accidentally bumping against Exusiai’s head. “Ah, sorry… I mean, I glanced at that Tw*tter post earlier. It had a lot of reposts and comments, but most people were probably just in it for the fun and forgot about it right after. To have over 300 people find our stream and follow us because of it, that’s a really high conversion rate.”

The stream was a black screen, but comments were already flying by, a chaotic river of text.

[1.8-Meter-Tall Hottie (Levi Ackerman profile pic): It says the stream starts at midnight, it’s almost time. Did everyone come from Tw*tter?]

[I Will Always Love ______ (Question mark profile pic): Came from Tw*tter. This stream used to be for DOTA, right? What a glow-up.]

[Queen Slay (Giant Bread with Sauce profile pic): To the Nee-chan above, did the poster get the contact info for these streamers for you?]

[I Will Always Love ______ (Question mark profile pic): That idiot, she completely forgot! And she even asked if they wanted to buy discs! Useless!]

[Happy on My Own (Pigeon profile pic): Hey, hey??? Didn’t we agree not to tell anyone about that?! Privacy, people!]

I glanced at the time on my phone. It was almost midnight. I said to my beautiful roommates huddled around me, “Let’s take a picture for the stream’s cover.”

“OK~” Exusiai gave a thumbs-up gesture. Yukino and Saber, of course, had no objections.

I held up my phone and stood in the front. Exusiai, looking like a handsome and stylish pretty boy, put her arm around my shoulder, the side of her perky assets pressing softly against me, and made a peace sign in front of her one visible red eye.

Yukino stood behind us like an elegant snow lotus, a faint, intoxicating yet unapproachable smile on her lips. The skin on her neck was so fair and delicate it made you want to pounce and suck her blood like a vampire. Next to her stood Saber, wearing a monocle from the last century. Saber had found the glasses in her locker, a gift from System-Hime. Wearing this monocle with her navy blue vest and her blonde hair and green eyes, she looked exactly like a Western elf butler—the kind of immortal, ever-present elf butler from a fantasy novel who helps generations of family heads… come of age.

As for me, in the phone’s camera, my face was delicate and clean, inspiring an unconscious feeling of affection. Anyone, male or female, who saw such a person would instinctively want to get closer.

“Hmm… feels like something’s missing?” I muttered, feeling the composition wasn’t quite right.

Yukino, who had studied photography as an artsy youngster in her past life, reached a slender, delicate hand from behind me. Her soft, light body leaned against my back as she used her pale fingers to change a few aperture and lens settings on my screen with expert taps.

In an instant, the abandoned dormitory behind us, its terrifying silhouette outlined by the ghostly moonlight, was captured by the lens as the background. Above it hung a rugged, round moon, like the skull of a giant, dead beast.

With a click, a stunningly gorgeous and eerie photo was born. The perfect thumbnail to lure in unsuspecting viewers.